Sunday, December 23, 2007

Equinox were a short lived british quartet from Chesterfield who came together in 1972. The band spent most of their first year on the club circuit before a chance encounter with the folks at Boulevard Records, a well-known budget label with a nasty reputation for fleecing their artists and releasing substandard product. Naive, the band agreed to record their album (in the engineer's basement) for a mere £25 per member. "Hard Rock" hit store shelves in early 1973 but within a few months the album was already in cutout bins all over the UK. The band were quite surprised to find that the individuals depicted on the cover were not even in the band. Boulevard explained that they were suffering from a cardboard shortage and had decided to recycle some old rejected covers for the "Hard Rock" release. Though the band tolerated this kind of shady treatment, they would eventually cease to exist by January of 1974. Vocalist Mick Shedd continued performing locally and now performs with classic rock cover band, Hellhound. Keyboardist Jon Stoppard has moved into performing celtic music and has released a solo album, "Secret Gardens". The remaining members whereabouts are unknown.

"Hard Rock" is nothing to get excited about, but it's not an awful effort either. Sounding much like many of their peers from the british music scene in the early 70's, The Equinox suffer mostly from lack of identity. The musicianship is decent enough and even some of the writing is fully formed, but sadly most of it is just indistinct. "Land of Blue Fire" and "Black Mike" get the honors here as the standouts. The rest is mediocre at best. Judge for yourself and download this rarity from the UK. Here is The Equinox.

This link is broken on rapid share? Any chance of re-posting it? I have the original vinyl untouched by needle and would love to keep it that way! I am a big fan of this recording since I found a copy in a record shop in Kent 20 years ago.

I'm "Monolover" - a fellow Blogspotter from Sweden about to post my own collection. When preparing for this Equinox Yours was the only place where I could find background facts. Is it OK if I borrow some of it for my page (with a reference). Kindly/Erik

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